American Go E-Journal » 2016 » January

The American Go Association has received an invitation to send two North American professionals to play in the first round of the 8th Pro Ing Cup Championship, which will be held April 18-25, 2016, in Shanghai, China. The organizer of the prestigious quadrennial tournament will cover round trip tickets plus room and board during the event. Online playoffs will be held on the weekend of January 16-17, with the format of the playoff depending on the number of interested players. Eligibility is professional status, US/Canadian citizenship and residency in the US for 6 of the last 12 months for US players (or equivalent Canadian Go Association international eligibility requirements). Players must be able to play in the online selections. Interested players must email cherry.shen@usgo.org by this Sunday, January 10th.

The E-Journal’s coverage of the 4th AGA Pro Qualification Tournament — this week in Los Angeles — has been expanded to include brief video game highlights focusing on key points in selected games. In our first batch, Tyler Oyakawa 5d provides a 2-minute review of the main ways to approach the 3-5 point in the Round 1 game between Sarah Yu and Daniel Gourdeau(right). “Nice comparison,” says Dontbtme. In his review of the Round 1 Andrew Lu-Aaron Ye game (4:10), Oyakawa explains how to manage an attack on weak groups, and in the Manuel Velasco-Jeremy Chiu first-round game (5:10), he looks at options for handling your opponent’s moyo, including when to reduce and when (and how) to invade. Finally, Oyakawa provides a brief explanation of Ben Lockhart’s fast opening moves against Andrew Lu in their Round 2 game (2:00). “Check them out and let us know what you think!” urges EJ Managing Editor Chris Garlock.

The AGA has received a request to send a young US or Canadian player to Tokyo, Japan for the third GLOBIS Cup U-20 World Go Championship, to be held April 21-24, 2016. The event, sponsored by the GLOBIS Corporation and organized by the Nihon Ki-in, will provide meals and accommodations, while the air fare expense will be borne by the player. The player must be under 20 years old as of January 1, 2016, and meet the other AGA or CGA eligibility requirements. Any necessary online play-offs will take place the weekend of January 23-24 on KGS. “This is a great opportunity to compete in an international tournament, explore Tokyo, and represent the AGA,” says AGA president Andy Okun. Interested players should respond with their names, best form of contact, and KGS IDs before January 12to cherry.shen@usgo.org.

The year is barely a few days old and it’s already been an exciting one for the American Go Association. Hundreds tuned in on January 1 to Myungwan Kim 9Ps commentary on our YouTube channel for the third round of the MLily Cup battle between go titans Lee Sedol and Ke Jie. Then an attack on the datacenter that hosts our site took the AGA’s website down until midday Sunday (though we were able to get some preliminary content out via our Facebook and Twitter feeds on Saturday and early Sunday), just in time for our coverage of the 4th AGA Professional Qualifier at the Hotel Normandie in Los Angeles. And as the AGA pro event began to wind down for the day early Sunday evening, our coverage of the fourth round of the MLily began. “After the pro qualifications, I thought I’d have a go overdose, but no way,” said one YouTube viewer, “let’s watch this game.”

AGA Pro Qualifier coverage continues all week, with game broadcasts beginning at 9:30a PST and 3P PST daily, along with continuous posts on Facebook and Twitter, plus game highlights on YouTube. And if a fifth game is needed in the MLily Cup, we’ll broadcast that as well; stay tuned for complete details.

As you may be aware, the AGA website has been down for the last couple of days, due to a DDOS attack on the datacenter that hosts our site. While this issue has hopefully been resolved, we strongly urge you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, where we’ll be continuing to cover the ongoing AGA Pro Qualifier Tournament live in Los Angeles, CA. Games are being broadcast on KGS starting at 9:30a and 3p PST daily.- report/photo by Chris Garlock

We can’t guarantee it’ll make you a stronger player but Stephen Miller’s new Go Quiz app is a lot of fun and will definitely improve your knowledge of the game. Available on Quizup (or search for Quizup in the App Store), the quiz now has 289 questions covering a wide range of go information, including history, players and the game itself. “You can play against people you know, or you can play against random players,” Miller tells the E-Journal. “Either way, it’s a fun way to learn some go facts, history, lore and trivia.” Each game has seven rounds and Miller says “The best experience in Quizup is to download the app on your mobile. It’s designed more as a mobile game, but you can certainly play online.”

Sun Ruoshi has just released “The Celestial Arsenal,” his English translation of the late Ming dynasty classic “Xianji Wuku.” Originally compiled around 1629, “The Celestial Arsenal” comprises a collection of hundreds of famous games, corner and side josekis, opening and invasion patterns, and over 400 life-and-death problems. Lu Xuanyu, a famous collector of go manuscripts, carefully selected and edited material from several famous go manuals and game records into eight scrolls: Gold, Rock, Silk, Bamboo, Gourd, Earth, Leather and Wood. This translation, however, is on 500 paper pages. The cover features two problems from the book; White to live on each side of the board. The book is available on Amazon and CreateSpace.

“With regard to the ‘Top US Players to Compete in 4th AGA Pro Tourney January 3-9 in LA’ report (12/29),” writes Ted Terpstra, “shouldn’t this be ‘North American’ go players instead of US go players as some of the 8 are from Canada?”Quite right, thanks for the correction. Canada will be represented by Daniel Gourdeau, Manuel Velasco, and Jin (Sarah) Yu. Gourdeau is a returning contender, but for Velasco and Yu it will be their first attempt.